Digital High-Vision broadcasting is starting, and it becomes possible to enjoy more impressive images of higher qualities than conventional ones at home along with the prevalence of high-definition television receivers (to be also simply referred to as TV sets hereinafter). As electronic still cameras become popular, many users display electronic still and moving images on the monitors of personal computers and TV sets and enjoy the displayed images.
In this situation, there are increasing user demands to not only display photographed still and moving images on TV sets, but also to “passively” view such images like television programs or enjoy them with presentations and audio video effects like television programs and movies.
Slide show display is a method of sequentially displaying digital image data without any user operation. As a method of adding an effect to slide show display, there are proposed a method of controlling a display switching effect in accordance with the settings of the display switching effect added in advance to distributed still images, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-281450, and a method of allowing the user to freely change the display switching effect to another one.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-343472 proposes a method of generating a frame image composited by superposing a next frame image on a previous frame image on the basis of resolution information of the previous frame image and that of the next frame image in slide show display.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-033216 proposes a method of choosing and playing back an image of high similarity to a specific person designated by the user or designated at random in slide show display.
However, the technique described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-281450 requires a work to add an effect by the contents creator in order to add a high display effect to a slide show. In addition, the user can only exchange a still image switching effect control instruction with another switching effect control instruction. That is, according to the conventional technique, it is difficult to automatically or easily add a display effect appropriate for the contents of each photograph.
According to the technique described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-343472, an image of a small display size can be so displayed as to prevent a margin from standing out. However, it is difficult to automatically or easily add a display effect suitable for the contents of each photograph.
According to the technique described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-033276, images of the same person can be displayed at once by a slide show. However, it is impossible to add a display effect proper for the contents of each photograph or give continuity between successive display effects.